Hulu approached us with an insight that the gaming audience is a prominent consumer of Hulu, however up until History of the World Part 2 they had not capitalized on their reach to this audience.

HOTWP2 was a primary tent pole for the brand; they wanted to do something different to reach gamers to better understand how they consume media & excite them to watch the show.

Our objective, creatively, was to develop an interactive gaming experience of History of the World, Part II that embraced the crass humor and absurd silliness of the show for an unforgettable, unique experience with plenty of memorable features like the fact that the world didn’t begin with a ‘big bang’ – it was actually ‘The Big Burp.’ We wanted players to feel like they’re part of the show as they experience various historical recreations, from Amelia Earhart to Noah’s Dog Park, and more.

The creative idea centered around an interactive journey that ties together outrageous historical stories from the show, and would make the player feel a part of the comedy and narrative. The art and craft of the visuals was a big part of making this work, taking players through 7 different scenes.

We expand on the show’s poster art style with an illustration style that is historical, modern and playful at the same time. Most of the artwork of the experience has a classic feel while still keeping it modern and able to be animated, but the artwork was another opportunity to represent chapters in history and the evolution of games. Bringing in an 8-bit pixel art style for the final boss battle chapter was a way to give a nod to the history of fighting games and relate to our target audience.

We wanted this experience to feel like the show but where curiosity and interaction through mini-games are what drive the story forward. Maintaining the humor of the show and bringing it to life in an artful way that makes for a unique user experience was our primary focus.

Throughout the game, animated hidden jokes halo back to comedy found in the original movie and current series. Comedy nerds couldn’t miss the Star of David starships in the title sequence or Hitler’s ice skate being thrown on the fire during the caveman scene (XBox version). The level of detail resulted in a website build with over 1000 image assets.

These choices paid off with players spending over 6 minutes in the experience on average compared to 2 minutes for comparable experiences, and over 37K users played the game and submitted to our sweepstakes.

The cultural relevance for the show and the interactive experience, was centered around the original movie, History of the World Part I, that was created 40 years ago with the lead actor, Mel Brooks — a comedic hero of his time, focusing on an audience that are not only fans of Brooks, but also history buffs.